The magazine numbers in the newsagency sales benchmark results which I published earlier this week were confirmed yesterday with the release of audit numbers. While I did not break out magazine sales by category, the results from the benchmark study pool indicated a year on year average decline for weeklies of 5%.
Famous is the only weekly delivering growth. I’d put this down to its content focus, excellent retail marketing tactics and price.
Grazia is in critical condition with a 17% decline in sales. Who is performing better than OK! in the Friday on-sale stakes reporting a decline of 4.7% compared to 15.2%.
The heavy hitters of Woman’s Day and New Idea both reported declines of 3.9% and 4.5% respectively. While not ideal, not at the bad end of the declines announced.
Take 5 and That’s Life also reported declines: 8.3% and 8.7% respectively.
Four other weeklies with concerning declines are: TV Week (12.7%), Picture (10.4%) and People (9.1%).
Check out the report at B&T for details.
A note to magazine publishers: I think you are missing an opportunity with the newsagency channel by taking an out of date cookie cutter approach to marketing. You send posters and expect billboard type displays. You do not reward genuine creativity nor do you reward tactical effort.
Newsagencies are your best retail outlet. We are individuals, business people, who know best how to engage with customers in our stores. Find a way to connect with this and you may turn around your sales decline. Accept that your current approach is not working as well as it might.
While any turnaround must start on the pages on your products, the next step is to engage with newsagents in a fresh and commercially respectful way.
I thin you would find plenty of newsagents keen for a fresh approach. We want what you want – more sales. This is because magazines are important to us. Our competitors, supermarkets, petrol, convenience and majors see magazines as cream. To us, magazines are bread and butter.
Newsagents are your more important partners and your best opportunity.
Mark, on 11/11 you made a comment that it was game over for print news, what are you seeing behind the scenes to make you think that it is not the same with magazines?
As you state yr on yr sales are declining, Even well established titles are moving away from print editions or closing down altogether, so why would publishers care about newsagents selling copies when they seem hell bent on delivering digital editions? I ask this because you stated about newspapers that we should not be like the dinosaurs and accept our fate we should change our focus.
Luke I think that the same is true for magaiznes. What I don’t know for newspapers or magazines is the timing. No one does. So much of what will happens depends on hardware sales, software development and reader engagement. These factors will drive advertiser interest.
My comments to publishers are about the short to medium term, the next one to three years. This is where there is an opportunity if publishers want to engage with us.
Unfortunately, some appear more interested in getting a sale anywhere and for any price they can. This only helps brong them down.
I blame distributers for this. If you want to trash a brand name give it to the supermarkets to make it look cheap and uninviting. How many times do you see the excluvieness of mag news being read in 30 seconds then put back. It,s so overdone the impulse sale it’s passsay,lowbrow,yesterday, no change. If I owned a magazine lable I would not want sold at a supermarket checkout.
Fred, the publishers control where their titles are sold.
publishers prefer supermarket than us (newsagents), we should move away from mags and newspapers replace them with other lines one day cause they are dying anyway no matter what they wanna do.
Guys
The answer lies in finding NEW revenue streams.
Some of these NEW revenue streams are obvious, and others we need to steal from our competitors.
Chris
Reservoir
I’ve just sold my last copy of Frankie: virtually every issue has seen increased sales with despite little publisher advertising (I’ve never seen so much as a poster) and no free gifts to a predominantly young and tech-savee female demographic. With the right content and presentation I don’t think it’s all doom and gloom for magazines that want to survive.
I shook my head this morning when I saw yet another tote bag add-on, this time to Harper’s Bazaar, which is also bagged so it can’t be browsed – if this helps sales I’ll be amazed.
I have been trying to trim my range for most of this year without success. Thanks to the help of someone who can remain anonymous I have now done a “shopfit” and reduced pockets. I have cut 300 and now have 900.
Ditto from me Mark in your note to publishers. BUT WILL THEY LISTEN?
Chris W I agree about Frankie and other titles like Monster Children, Rushh etc that have very strong sales with absolutely no POS supplied. Given the demographic that buys these magazines (the very crowd that love the net for mag & info access) it is pleasing to see that these mags still have a place. In my opinion its the strong and relevant content in these mags that make them appealing to the purchaser.
What other magazines do other newsagents like? In my experience in my shop and aside from skiing mags Mindfood, Yoga, Womens Health/Fitness, etc, Mens Health, Renew, Prevention, Frankie, Monster Children, Rushh, Oyster and a few are all hot sellers aside from the regular top 20. All these mags have great content and sell in increasing numbers for me.
Keith, newsagents are the best chance publishers have!
Angelo,
like you I am very contented to sell some of the $20 + titles consistently, I eyeball every sale from yesterday each morning and co-locate carefully. I sell a lot of woodwork mags here, heaps of puzzles 9 2 sales this morning of between $40+ $50, camping 4WD is big here ( I send very few bagged mags back btw, Yen and Frankie have by far overtaken Cosmo, Cleo,GF and Dolly here.My travel mags are consistent too, placed with maps, atlases,Str Dirs – so far tom-toms havn’t seemed to stop sales (sell everything I get re France and Italy. Homes/house rens have been dull all year,just picking up again – I stock all the architectural titles I can and often sell $80 worth at once esp on a Sat morning.
Go with your strengths!